Legends Of Tomorrow S01E02 “Pilot, Part 2” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on: Sky1, Thursdays, 8PM
Writers: Phil Klemmer, Marc Guggenheim, Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg
Director: Glen Winter

Essential Plot Points:

• The Legends are still in 1975 and track Savage to a weapons auction in Norway where he is attempting to sell a nuclear warhead.
• They infiltrate the auction under the guise of being a group of terrorists. Damien Darhk is amongst the buyers.
• The Legends end up attracting more attention than they want, even accidentally agreeing to buy the warhead for hundreds of millions of dollars.
• Savage senses something is off, as he can detect Carter and Kendra’s presence when they’re near and the Legends end up in battle with all the terrorists present.
• Savage starts the warhead’s countdown in order to aid his escape. Jax flies the warhead away and absorbs the majority of the blast.
• Hunter berates the Legends for exposing themselves to Savage and for the fact that part of Atom’s suit was left behind. Using the future-super-computer, he shows how Savage uses the Atom’s tech to develop super weapons that will destroy Central City in 2016. But there’s still time to course-correct before the historical revision becomes permanent.
• Professor Stein, Jax, and Sara go after the piece of Ray’s suit while Ray, Leonard, and Mick head out together to find the dagger that was used to kill Kendra and Carter in their first life, as the dagger could be used as part of an intricate plan to kill Savage.
• Carter works to help Kendra remember more about her past life so she can read the ancient language of the incantation that must be recited with the dagger in order to kill Savage. She resents being pressured to be romantically involved with Carter as she lacks those feelings for him in this reincarnation.
• Stein’s team end up meeting a young Stein while in search for Ray’s tech while Leonard’s team ends up getting kidnapped by Savage, as the location of the dagger that they’d tracked ended up being Savage’s home.
• Savage takes those men prisoner and forces them to call the rest of the team.
• Kendra and Carter fight Savage but Savage uses the dagger to kill Carter and reveals that only Kendra can wield it to kill him.
• Kendra is also stabbed in the fight and badly injured. The rest of the team arrives in time to blast Savage away so they can grab Kendra and retreat.
• The Legends will have to form a different plan to stop Savage.
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Review:

Though the first part of the pilot was quite exciting and fun, the second part feels like a slightly watered down version of the same thing. Though not a bad episode in its own right, it seems to exist mostly to lay groundwork for the future rather than to significantly push the plot forward. Jax absorbing the blast of the nuclear warhead is establishing a baseline for his Firestorm abilities. Rip Hunter does little more than wag his finger at the Legends for the bulk of the episode. Kendra and Carter remain in an unconventional limbo state, romantically speaking. But while all the characters’ arcs remain stagnant, the episode is not without its merits.

Once again, the costumes are outstanding. With time travel central to the plot, wardrobe is crucial. During the moments where team members venture out into 1975 in the States, the absurdity of the fashion sense of the time is fully embraced but never to such an extent that it distracts from the characters themselves. The visual effects and the fight sequence during the weapons auction are very well executed. There are some nice character bonding moments here and there throughout the episode, which makes us think that the team dynamics will only carry on growing more cohesive.

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The Good:

• The way in which Professor Stein, Leonard, Mick and Sara work together to infiltrate the weapons auction was a stand-out moment in seeing how the wide array of skills and knowledge they have can be combined to make one self-actualised team.
• Following that previous point, Mick’s excitability about the way Professor Stein’s quick-thinking talks the team into the auction is the second time he and Stein have had a moment like that. They’re an unconventional duo but since they’re already this entertaining together, it’s a relationship we hope the writers explore further.
• Seeing Jax get to flex his powers more and enjoy doing so is a welcome sign of growth from his introduction into the show, when he was drugged, kidnapped and forced into joining the team in their travels.

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The Bad:

• Similar to last week’s episode, not all the Legends are getting an equal share of the action. Hopefully things will balance themselves out more within the next few episodes.
• Vandal Savage is a deeply off-putting villain. He’s reading like a bad, moustache-twirling trope who’ll soon be kidnapping screaming women and tying them to railway tracks. If he’s going to be around for a while, it would be wise to make him a bit more three-dimensional.
• Unlike the first episode’s crossover cameos by Oliver Queen and Laurel Lance, the inclusion of Damien Dahrk in this episode felt like a cameo done for the hell of it as opposed to having a real purpose. Unless the writers are keeping quiet on further appearances by Dahrk, there was no reason for him to be there; he could have just as easily been an anonymous terrorist never to be seen again.
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The Random:

• Is anyone else getting The Mummy Returns flashbacks from Kendra and Carter’s ancient Egyptian past-life-centric plot? Anck-Su-Namun and Imhotep were far more badass, though.
• When Ray Palmer makes a comment about Snart spending half his life in prison you have to assume this is an injoke referring to the fact that Wentworth Miller (Snart) and Dominic Purcell (Rory) were both in Prison Break (and will be again, soon).
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Review by Jenevia Kagawa Darcy

Read our other DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow reviews